Transport
By Airships: Back To The Future With Zeppelins
Yvonne Doff September 17 2019
We all read
about climate change. Perhaps it is going faster than we thought, and there is
no way back. How can we slow it down? We need adjustments in our daily habits,
for example, travelling by car, reconsider our diets and other options to
reduce co2-emissions. In a newly published research paper, Austrian scientists
are willing to opt for a romantic flight of fancy. Do you know what they mean?
Transport
By Airships: Bring Them Back
Back from
the past is this flying object: the zeppelin, named after the German Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Almost a century after the Hindenburg disaster (1937,
the last time an airship this big is seen), the flying object makes a new
appearance. Well, only if Julian Hunt, the lead author of the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, has his way. Hunt proposes replacing
maritime traffic with zeppelins. This way, you avoid pollutants and tainted
ecosystems in oceans. "We could have a sky filled with gently sailing,
non-polluting zeppelins", according to Hunt.
People who
take global warming seriously, are trying the best they can to reduce emissions
of carbon dioxide. A research team calculated that a zeppelin could transport
20,000 ton around the world, dropping off cargo and returning to base in only
sixteen days. That is way faster, less complex and less polluting than any
seagoing vessel.
Are There
Any Airships Left?
We do not
use Airships quite often, but sometimes zeppelins are being used to shoot
films, to advertise for significant events. People in Germany, the United
States, and even in the Netherlands are working on the reappearance of the
airship.
Back To The
Future With Zeppelins! Where Are They?
There are a
few obstacles. The United States prohibits hydrogen airships since 1922.
Hydrogen is the primary source of buoyant for airships, but it is flammable — a
little reminder to the horrific disaster with the zeppelin in 1937 where 36
people were killed.
A lot of
people flew with the airships back then, but within a few minutes, the era of
the passenger airship came to an end with the Hindenburg disaster. But,
something more subtle, but way scarier is approaching us. Climate change! We
have to deal with it. We cannot drive around it, we cannot sail around it, but
who knows, soon, we can fly over it in a romantic flight of fancy.
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